This invention relates to a dental probe and more particularly to one that is adapted to provide the user with output electrical signals that provide three dimensional positional information.
In preparing a dental prosthesis, a complex and time consuming technique is generally employed in which impressions, measurements and molds are made with appreciable involvement by the dentist. Yet, modern electronic techniques have been available for a considerable period of time with which instruments, such as cutting instruments, can be automatically controlled to provide almost any structural form desired.
Accordingly, it is a major purpose of this invention to provide a link between the operation that must be performed by the dentist in providing a dental prosthesis and an automatically run tool for manufacturing the particular prosthesis.
In order for this link to be employed, it is important that it be relatively simple to use and be of a nature and structure with which the dentist is familiar. Accordingly, it is a further purpose of this invention to provide a dental probe or tracing apparatus similar in external configuration to what is now employed by dentists but which will provide an output signal that contains all the positional information needed to fully described the envelope of the required prosthesis.
It is a further purpose of this invention to provide such a probe or trace apparatus as can be used by the dentist in substantially the same fashion and by employing substantially the same manipulative techniques as are presently employed in the manipulation of a dental stylus.
Because of the medical nature of the apparatus involved, it is a further purpose of this invention that the device involved be safe to use and avoid imposing a substantial inconvenience on the patient.